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Wednesday, November 23, 2016

grateful

We will all have many teachers throughout our life. Some of them come in human form, and some come in the form of regular old life. The greatest of teachers come around and challenge our own assumptions about what we know and believe.

Strangely, autism is one of the most painful, yet greatest teachers I've encountered. It's challenged my assumptions about almost everything in the world, and the people in it. It's challenged what I thought it meant to have special needs. About what I thought it meant to love unconditionally. About what I thought it meant to be a friend. About what I thought it meant to be different. To really and truly be so incredibly different. About what I thought it meant to fail. About what really and truly matters most to me in the world.

I've started to realize, before autism, I had so much of it wrong. (Life). I still get it wrong sometimes (a lot) so I come here to write and breathe and remember. Through all of it, my incorrect assumptions fall to the ground and shatter like dust, and I feel as real as the skin horse explains in The Velveteen Rabbit.

{Real isn't how you are made, it's a thing that happens to you. Sometimes it hurts, but when you are Real you don't mind being hurt.} the velveteen rabbit

One day, one lesson, one journey at a time, Real is something that happens to us. And that is how we do life. We are all just figuring this thing out. Each lesson - especially the ones that pull and push at us, pain us, confuse us- is a prayer towards letting go and becoming Real. This Thanksgiving I am taking a moment to breathe and actually feel gratitude for the many, many gifts I've been given. Life doesn't ever really slow down, so instead we must- and focus on what truly means the most to us.

I am so grateful for different. Don't get me wrong, I'm CRAZY about same. We ache for same, despite knowing that it holds no key to becoming who we are. I want to be who I am meant to be. Without the fear, or self conscienceness that sometimes whispers- Stop. Same can be comforting, yes, but never challenging, never growing, never expanding. Same has never softened my heart. It has never made me cry at the enormity of life. It has never made me stretch my fingers further than I knew I could. I am so grateful for the different infused into my life.

I am also grateful for incomplete. Oh man, the oceans of incomplete that covers our lives. Houses, and to do lists, and what I want and need to accomplish. Here we all are, smack dab in the middle of incomplete. I would be so happy, if I could only have... is the beginning of a sentence that is always a lie. We do it in big ways and in small. (I would be so happy if he could really talk. I would be so happy if my bangs would freaking grow out already.) The truth that no one tells you is- we actually can wait for happy. We can wait as long as we want, and as long as our patience allows. And what a waste that is. We can also choose to NOT wait for happy. There is always a thing, a phase, a moment we can't wait to pass us by. It will pass, of that I am certain. And then it will be replaced by something else, because that's how life goes. But there is also always, happy hanging on the lowest limb, waiting for us to pick it.

I am grateful for authentic people who tell the truth. People who can express themselves. People who challenge status quo. People who can say and think- This isn't right for me. This does not fit my dimensions of who I believe I am. The truths about my real, true self that I believe in and the character traits I pride myself on possessing. We are together in our aloneness. We don't believe in automatic existences. We don't accept status quo. We fight the whisper of society and community and history and sometimes even family that says- THIS is how things are. THIS is how things should be. THIS is how you should be.

And we lie to ourselves too. I should be this kind of (daughter, Christian, sister, employee, mother, father, neighbor...) The nouns can go on forever. We should just be, really. We need to learn to just be, and own it.

Life isn't easy, yet there is so much to be grateful for. Everyday we get out there and try again. And sometimes we fail, we do it wrong. But sometimes we shine. We feel it, that hum of living on purpose. That is authentic living. Why would we strive for anything else?

This Thanksgiving season I am grateful for YOU. Yes, you. Thank you for loving, praying, and caring about our story. Humankind is such a beautiful thing.

4 comments:

I absolutely do pray for you, your health, your stamina, your marriage, and your beautiful sons.Life struggles are only a paper tiger. When we get up close, live those painful times, we realize it can always be so much worse. We are not home yet. Merry Christmas, Chrissy. Hugs from NC.